


Therapeutic Environments

by marcelo



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 03:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16778800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcelo/pseuds/marcelo
Summary: An artificial intelligence capable of creating arbitrary virtual reality scenarios makes for an incredibly capable therapist.On the other hand, this is the Trinity we're talking about.





	Therapeutic Environments

**Author's Note:**

> I dislike _Heroes in Crisis_ rather a lot, but the concept of a Sanctuary using Virtual Reality for the psychological treatment of heroes is a fascinating one, so here's a take — not quite canon's — on how it works for the Trinity. Well, sort of.

Therapy doesn't work on Batman.

It might have worked on Bruce, once. But he built Batman's mind as an engineered construct of skills, perception, and resilience, an analytical fortress over a foundation of bottomless chthonic darkness, a mirror and blueprint of the Cave that's his chosen home. Batman's mind perceives therapy as a psychological attack and rejects it.

So the Sanctuary gives him the only thing he can accept as real. It gives him Gotham, and darkness, and pain of all kinds. It gives him innocents he cannot always save, and monsters that always rise again. It gives him Hell, and hopes without hope that one day he'll have his fill.

* * *

Therapy doesn't work on Superman.

It works on Clark Kent, but Superman isn't him. Superman is the unique solution at the intersection of his flesh' power and his parents' ethics. He's impossible, and necessary, and therefore unchanging, lest the world risk doom.

There's no need for Superman in a world without danger, and no place in his mind (unlike Clark's) for the idea of failure or wavering. The Sanctuary gives him good to do, and he does most of it, and he cannot, ever, stop or deviate until the world itself is saved forever. It gives him Purgatory, and hopes with ruthless hope that Clark will never have time to understand the cost and reconsider his choice.

* * *

Therapy doesn't work on Wonder Woman.

Diana has sometimes been the Goddess of Truth, and always, in one way or another, her chosen champion. What willful denial is there for therapy to shine a light on? She knows herself and others for what they truly are, the common godhood and the common baseness. She accepts herself as one accepts arithmetic, seeks peace because she has no illusions about what lies behind war, and offers others home because she knows she will never be whole having lost her own.

So the Sanctuary gives her Paradise, knowing she doesn't believe it, having no hope but sharing hers.


End file.
